


At the Body's Borders

by Morbane



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Desperation, First Time, M/M, Pining, Pre-Canon, Watersports, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 02:20:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5439839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane/pseuds/Morbane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lieutenant Beshelar acquires a new partner in training.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the Body's Borders

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jain/gifts).



> Thank you very much to snickfic & Brigdh for your comments and suggestions.

Within the Untheileneise Court, Lieutenant Beshelar prided himself on knowing North as well as a compass needle. In almost all the vast palace, however high above ground, however far below it, he could reckon what lay above his head or below his feet, and how it might be reached by public or private means.

Within the Mazan'theileian, he needed a novice to guide him where he had been sent. The novice saw him taking note of turns and stairways, as was his professional habit, and clearly disapproved thereof.

When the novice finally stopped and knocked, it was on a door that they had previously passed. Beshelar would have taken this for an even more unsubtle show of disapproval, were it not for the fact that the boy had tapped swiftly on it on the first pass - giving the occupant the courtesy of a few minutes' warning, Beshelar presumed.

The official knock yielded no more obvious result than the unofficial one.

Beshelar raised his eyebrows at his guide - who rolled his own eyes. "It's just Cala's way," he said, with a poor attempt at adult sophistication. Beshelar let silence speak for him, and the boy's ears nervously dipped and rose again, like flames that had been blown upon, to match the spots of colour in his cheeks.

The door opened, and Beshelar and the novice broke their gaze.

In the doorway, a man in worn maza's robes nodded gravely at the novice, and then bowed respectfully to Beshelar, a bow Beshelar returned. "We are Deret Beshelar," he said.

"Lieutenant," Cala Athmaza agreed. "You are welcome," and led him inside, shutting out the novice’s retreating steps.

The immediate room was generous, dim, and bare, paved in smooth flagstones. Beshelar would have taken it for some form of common chapel or salle, were it not for the chests at the right wall that were part-open, spilling incongruously colourful fabrics out from under the lids; something with leather straps and metal was carelessly slung from one of the sconces, and a letter with its seal broken lay in front of a writing desk and stool that had been together pushed into the far left corner. This was a simultaneously personal and impersonal space. Yet Beshelar could not figure it. This antechamber hinted at a sumptuous apartment, but the spacing of the doors along the hall did not match the implied width, nor did the square he and the novice had walked together match the implied depth.

Cala Athmaza smiled at him.

"This is both the entrance to and the heart of a maza's apartments," he said. "Our sleeping chamber merely accommodates the cot; our other needs are measured off in the same way. We will show you -" and he bent to draw shapes on the stones.

The maza was a tall man, and he moved in jerks, without grace, but with confidence. Beshelar could guess that there were well-developed muscles under his robes, lining his bones. He squatted above the floor and drew a plan with his finger, necessitating that Beshelar kneel beside him. Despite the chamber's unkempt look, there was little dust for Cala to draw in.

"See here our chamber, and here our lavatory, and here where we may light a brazier and warm our soup," Cala said easily, marking the antechamber they were in as a square that took a corner, and most of the area, from a larger square.

Cala waited just long enough that Beshelar might have asked another question, then rose. In the moment that Beshelar was thinking, _He is well accustomed to students_ , Cala said, "But you are here to teach us of your own habits." He smiled again. "What of a guard's skills do you think it practical for a maza to learn?"

Mockery was absent. Beshelar answered seriously.

"Must learn to watch," he said. "Our eyes may stand us in better stead than the strength of our arms. Must train your feet, too. Are you accustomed to standing long in one place without movement?"

"No," said Cala, "our studies are performed sitting in more comfort. We can guess what practice-work you will set us when we are done with this session."

"You may not entirely defer it," Beshelar replied, "as we will wish to be satisfied as to your pose. It is no help to build high on a crooked foundation."

Cala gave him a considering look, eyes wide and clear behind his large spectacles. "Very well," he said, after a moment. The previous warmth was gone. Beshelar was not sure if he had offended his new training partner, or taken him aback, or if Cala merely wished to demonstrate his sobriety. He hoped it was the latter.

He chose his next suggestion - dodges and falls - because it was important, and also because it did not require him to watch Cala's face, or Cala to watch his.

Beshelar had been considered young for this assignment. It was not the first time that a disparity between his age and his responsibilities, or his age and his advancement, had been commented on. In truth, he _felt_ young in this role, as he had not in others. But he was determined to show confidence.

Mazei and the members of the Untheileneise Guard trained together so that they would be prepared to serve as nohecharei. The training was an honour, but it was not always a sign of imminent advancement. Varenechibel IV's nohecharei were experienced, unswerving, and in good health. The Emperor's heirs' households included many guards, from whom soldier-nohecharei would be chosen when an heir took the throne. Beshelar did not know how many mazei there were who might partner with Prince Nemolis' present bodyguards, but he was sure arrangements had been made. The orders Beshelar had been given, to train Cala Athmaza and be trained in turn, might imply that Captain Orthema wished to assign a higher class of bodyguard to the Emperor's grandson, Idra Drazhar, before he came of age; or it might mean merely that Captain Orthema was cautious, and had no immediate plans for Deret Beshelar.

After all, not all soldiers could accustom themselves to magic, nor all mazei achieve an acceptable level of soldierly discipline.

Cala Athmaza did not immediately disqualify himself in that regard. He was not apt, but he was attentive as Beshelar demonstrated and then demanded simple blocks and falls. If he wondered why Beshelar sought to improve his physical responses to threat, when a maza surely had other ways of responding, he did not express criticism. When a poorly-executed fall winded him, he grimaced and requested a few minutes' respite, and got to his feet and readied himself for the next instruction before Beshelar felt the need to chivvy him.

When an hour had passed, Cala suggested that they alternate their instruction. For his turn, he cast spells across the chamber – little things that caused smells or sparks or musical tones. He wanted, he explained, to sensitize Beshelar to the peculiar tension in the air that came just before a spell was cast, and that lingered after it. Beshelar had no natural gift at this. Cala was forced to employ stronger and stronger spells.

"Now," Beshelar said, guessing wildly, hoping that he had correctly marked the moment before Cala was to launch a gust of air across the room. Cala shook his head and lowered his hand.

"We think we must teach you a different way," he said thoughtfully. "Wait, and look away from us." He went to the left wall. Beshelar obediently turned and fixed his eyes on the right wall.

He listened to Cala's steps, which dragged a little - either a careless gait, or mere weariness - as Cala walked back and forth along the wall, here hesitating, here pausing longer. He was murmuring to himself, but Beshelar could not determine the words, and in any event they did not have the rhythm of conversation.

"We are done," Cala said, when perhaps ten minutes had passed. Beshelar relaxed his pose, turned. There was no discernable difference, except that Cala had moved some of the chests out from the wall.

"Please, come," Cala said. Beshelar crossed the room to him. "Take your hand," Cala said, himself taking Beshelar's right wrist in a loose grip, "and trace the wall - here." Cala pressed Beshelar’s hand lightly into the wall, spreading out Beshelar’s fingertips with his own free hand. “Concentrate on the sensations you receive.”

There was no visible mark. Beshelar concentrated, narrowing his eyes. The position in which his fingers were splayed was not quite natural. His little finger twitched closer to his ring finger; he adjusted his position, and realized that the spot his ring finger touched felt different to the others. As if it were spiky, or shivering – his fingertip felt something like tiny pinpricks, alternating where they pressed, although it was hard wall and he did not think it moved.

He brought his other hand up to tap next to his right ring fingertip.

“Good,” said Cala. “We have laid a spell there.”

“What kind of spell?”

With his free hand, Cala waved dismissively – disconcertingly, they were already so closely pressed that his hand flapped just by Beshalar’s face. “It does not matter. It is a strengthening spell – we thought to avoid waste of effort – but it will not harm you.”

Beshalar tapped again, dubiously.

“Find where else we have laid it,” Cala prompted.

Now the exercise became clear. Beshalar moved his hand carefully up and down. The spell was laid in a long streak at another part of the wall, and Cala solemnly went to one knee beside Beshelar as he tried to determine how far down the streak went. He explored to his left less successfully; although he moved his hand methodically up and down, back and forth, he could not be sure of the sensation of magic again. In time, Cala’s grip tightened on his wrist, and Cala guided his hand back to the first spot. “Re-accustom yourself,” Cala commanded. He waited in place behind Beshelar, his patience apparently infinite.

“Why does it feel like that?” Beshelar asked.

“It gives off its power,” Cala said, trailing off. After half a minute, he said, “The very great spells do that. A wall-strengthening spell should not. We have laid it poorly. You feel it because we have laid it so that the magic may dissipate.”

He paused again, and Beshelar stood, waiting, with him.

“Think of a flask in which you keep warm tea,” Cala said, “and of a hot brick that you wrap in cloth and put in your bed to warm it. The purpose of the brick is to release its heat. The purpose of the flask is to keep your tea warm. If your flask is hot to the touch, if it surrenders its heat to your fingers, your tea will go cold.”

Beshelar had not expected to be lectured on the theory of magic, but he tried to give a reply of the sort Cala was seeking. “But that is not the difference between the greater and the lesser spells,” he said.

“No,” Cala said, continuing, “the great and the little magics are the same in this way. Each loses its influence over time. The difference is but that a greater spell has more force to lose.”

“We see,” Beshelar said, relieved. “And we feel,” he added, cracking a rare joke, and felt Cala’s half-laugh as a puff of breath that just barely stirred his hair.

Theory aside, he was enjoying what he felt. In the last two hours, he had gained respect for Cala Athmaza; he was as unpretentious and willing a teacher as he was a student. While Beshelar suffered fools when he must, he did not like to. There was, he suspected, a vein of kindness that ran deeper in Cala than it did in himself.

Their close proximity, and the length of contact from Beshelar’s wrist all along his arm, where Cala’s arm overlaid his, was pleasant too. The touch was light; Cala moved easily with him. The hints he gave, by closing his fingers on Beshelar’s wrist, were subtle, encouraging Beshelar to relax and respond.

It was not entirely an innocent response. Beshelar was _marnis_. In the reign of Varenechibel IV, whose avowed agnosticism set the fashion, inclinations towards those of one’s own sex were not condemned, as they had been in the past, but nor were they celebrated. Beshelar had made peace with his desires, so long as they did not interfere with his duty. As now – he concentrated on the wall under his fingertips, letting the sense of Cala’s proximity dim to a pleasant undercurrent.

And as he grew in confidence, in identifying the pattern Cala had laid on the wall, Cala’s grip on his wrist loosened, distracting him less. Without being able to _see_ any difference in the parts of the wall that had been strengthened by magic and those that had not, Beshelar was at a disadvantage, but he was beginning to guess at a pattern. Had Cala drawn an image on the wall? He began to think he had.

Were mazei trained this way? Were there invisible murals on the walls of the corridors he had walked through?

There were eight thick lines going down, not straight – the legs of a beast? And a thick swathe off to the left of them – a tail? Beshelar traced what could be a back, and his hand rose, following perhaps the curve of a neck – but now it was jagged; a horse?

His confidence was growing, but his right fingertips were becoming numb. The prickly sensation now persisted even when he broke contact with the wall. He put up his left hand again, and as he reached up, and Cala reached up with him, he stumbled. Cala had laid the spell well above his head. The reach was difficult.

His was a small stumble, easily caught, but Cala, behind him, swayed. The grip on Beshelar’s wrist was first tight, then gone.

Beshelar whirled, in time to see Cala grunt and windmill backwards, his expression more rueful than alarmed. There was not time to pull him to his feet, but there was time – for these reflexes were drilled into Beshelar – to dive with Cala, pull Cala half-around, and interpose his body between Cala’s and the floor.

The shock of impact ran up his elbow and along his back. Cala’s weight knocked the breath out of him. He lay for a moment, checking himself for further injury. He might have bruises later. He might not.

Cala half-rolled, and fumbled to the side for purchase on the floor to lever himself up again; his hand came down on Beshelar’s forearm, and he hastily lifted it. Beshelar discovered that he had enough breath for a snort of laughter. Cala found the purchase he needed, and got up, and extended a hand to Beshelar. With the arm that wasn’t jarred, Beshelar took Cala’s hand to rise.

He ought not to have laughed. It had been Beshelar’s mis-step that had overbalanced Cala. “Our apologies,” Beshelar said stiffly.

“Our thanks,” Cala returned wryly, warmth in both voice and eyes. Enough warmth – and a direct enough look – to jar Beshelar again. He thought that Cala was offering desire back to him.

It threatened to flush his face red. He did not feel flattered, only caught. He did not want to share his thought, his awareness – so new it was not even a fantasy. He felt suddenly as young as his companions in the Guard said he was (even those of an age to him, who were all too happy to prove their youth and foolishness to themselves).

But he resisted their jibes weekly, and he knew how to handle himself now. He nodded to Cala. “Perhaps we have done enough for one day,” he said briskly. “Does the fortnight suit you?”

“We are not sure,” Cala Athmaza said, vaguely, to Beshelar’s sudden annoyance. “We will send you word.”

* * *

Beshelar used annoyance more than was his wont, in the following months, to keep Cala at the distance that was most suitable.

He did not have to look hard to find fault with Cala Athmaza. He was attentive in training, but tardy and absentminded otherwise. If Beshelar proposed a variation on the time they were to meet, Cala was likely to agree, but also likely to forget about the change. He was perceptive: when Beshelar was tired or out of sorts, Cala noticed. But he did not stop at noticing – he had to _ask_ , and Beshelar’s calm and curt reply the first time did not stop him from asking again.

Cala asked, Beshelar was sure, because he believed himself to be Beshelar’s friend. Not, Beshelar thought, because Cala saw any particular quality in Beshelar that led him to cultivate their friendship, but because Cala was open and kind and did not see any reason why they should _not_ be friends. That lack of distinction annoyed Beshelar. Cala’s mere amiability was no exchange for trust. He was not sure Cala knew the difference between cordial terms, and true friendship.

They were friendly, and that was enough. They walked about the court together, and even into Cetho, as friends might, because Beshelar did not want to bore his partner or himself by conducting all his lessons in a bare chamber, and some things could not be taught there at all. He took Cala to parapets or street corners where many people passed, and taught him to distinguish finely between those who knew their way and those who did not, and between those whose agitation or odd behaviour warranted concern, and those whose behaviour did not. He taught Cala how to guess that a man of goblin features and fashion might have lived in Cetho all his life, and how to guess that a woman of pure moonlight hair and perfect court attire had only recently come to the Untheileneise Court. He taught Cala to watch for weapons, especially those that were strapped to the body under clothing, and how clumsy movement or the flow of cloth betrayed them.

They were friendly, and that was not always enough. Cala’s faults wore on Beshelar, but his merits grew on him. He was humble always, and he was clear and assured when their work turned to magic. The insight that Beshelar found uncomfortable when it was bent on _him_ was useful when Cala applied it to the study of strangers and passersby.

He was not too free with his hands, but very occasionally, he would reinforce some point about magic with a touch, or use contact to emphasise his praise, and Beshelar wished he minded that, but he did not.

He wanted Cala; he did not know how much, because he tamped down any thought like that before it stirred beyond a wistful curiosity. He did not want Cala any the less for knowing him, for making note of (and remarking on) his flaws. But he did not know how he could have in his life a man who was not only his lover and friend, but also his partner in duty. He did not even know how to try. He only knew that failure would be terrible, in ways that he could imagine and many ways he couldn’t. So he kept his smiles to a minimum, and silently catalogued Cala’s flaws.

He was teaching Cala to judge what clothing meant, but Cala’s own clothing was a disgrace. When Beshelar had first begun to train with the maza, he had assumed that Cala had put on his shabbiest robes on purpose, to prepare for exertion or some imagined rough work. In fact, he had no better. “It is no matter not to be tailored,” Cala said, shrugging, when Beshelar asked about pinned-together rips, sleeves that were too long, or robes that came only below Cala’s knee, as if Cala were a wading eel-fisher, and not a maza. “We have no luxuries, and as a child, we grew too fast to think that clothes that fit us elegantly were anything more than a luxury.” He picked at his sleeve, self-deprecating. “We are not sure we have stopped growing.”

“It ill befits your dignity,” Beshelar protested, though he knew this was a weak argument to make with Cala Athmaza.

“To you, dignity is like to duty,” Cala said thoughtfully. “It _is_ part of your duty perhaps, but…” The thought evidently intrigued him, in a purely academic way. 

Beshelar did not scowl, sputter, or sigh, though he would have liked to.

But he suggested that Cala try a soldier’s garb for an hour, and a soldier’s gait, and there was something a little petty about the suggestion.

The exercise evolved from discussion of the elves and goblins they observed. Beshelar had asked Cala to note differences in the ways he, Beshelar, wore his uniform, and the way other guards did. Cala made a good attempt at comments, and Beshelar was pleased with him, and if Cala’s comments on Beshelar’s own tidy presentation lodged in his thoughts later, it was no one’s business. But it irritated him all the more that Cala took no thought to his own appearance. Perhaps it was merely that his shabbiness was itself a uniform. Perhaps, in a different context, in a different costume, he would do better.

He made sure the clothing fit. Cala would have sauntered out into the streets with the first tunic Beshelar gave to him to try, but Beshelar would not have it. Cala smiled indulgently at Beshelar during what amounted to a one-sided argument over his hose, but Beshelar did not smile back. This was the uniform of the Palace; he would not have Cala make a poor showing of _that_.

With only a modicum of instruction, he bustled Cala out into the corridors, and he told himself there was a reason for that too.

“We are two guards walking to our shift,” he told Cala. “We are unremarkable. Stand taller. Lower your hands.”

He kept up his instructions, giving them slightly too frequently, so that Cala began to second-guess his own stride, grow doubtful as to his own demeanour. He waited until Cala began to glance about him, clumsily and unsubtly. Then he changed the angle of his questions: where was Cala looking? How did he feel? If he felt eyes on him, from where?

As Cala recognised the shape of the lesson – to put himself not in the shoes of an imperial guard, but of an imposter – he relaxed; paradoxically, his stride evened and he looked around him with more assurance. It was rare that Beshelar could put Cala off-balance so. He knew not to try to extend that particular lesson.

They had left the Untheileneise Court by the Beechgate, and had strolled down the boulevard that led down to Cetho’s markets, and had turned, and were approaching the Court again.

Beside Beshelar, Cala was walking at his usual easy, lazy pace, a little stooped forward, his knees rising no higher than absolutely necessary for each step. All too easily, he had become a clown of a guard, and the image he presented needled Beshelar. “Take care with your walk,” he said.

“We should not be a mirror of you, Lieutenant,” Cala said, almost chuckling, “were the Istandaärtha to stream into the sky.”

“May not fool us,” Beshelar replied, keeping his tone light despite his growing anger, “but what of them?” He nodded in the direction of the Beechgate. The guards stationed there had changed shifts.

Cala looked at him doubtfully; Beshelar returned his look levelly. Cala – Cstheio witness him – attempted to straighten and to stride. His face smoothed out into a more innocent diffidence – a soldier new to service, worried about his performance. If Cala’s face had been all there was to judge, he would not have done so poorly.

But he carried the blunt stave Beshelar had given him as if it were a thing bought at a whim at the market, a burden he only wished to lay down. His baldric was slipping badly, and he didn’t notice. His elbows were out, his hands too wide; he was accustomed to use his arms for balance when he mis-stepped, not to protect his sides or quickly reach for dagger or stave.

He had at least paid some attention to Beshelar’s comments as they made their way out through the Court. He glanced at the gate guards, and it was a clumsy glance, but it was no more than a glance.

Hareva and Roshar were on duty. Beshelar raised his eybrows at them. “What do you think of our maza recruit here?” he asked, breaking the fiction; Cala relaxed, then, too, and because Hareva was older and steady and Roshar was young and idolized Hareva, they were kind – kinder than Beshelar would have been.

Hareva had Cala block a stave strike, then drop his hand to his dagger, again and again, while Beshelar took his place in watching the gate. “Better,” Hareva concluded, and both Beshelar and Cala were smiling a little as they walked away. Beshelar felt obscurely relieved. He had offered Cala up to his companions for criticism, but it was better that it had not fallen that way.

At the next station they passed, Alatar and Mirazh were on duty. Here was a hurdle. Alatar was a hothead and Mirazh was not stolid enough to quell him. Before Beshelar, considering how to handle them, opened his mouth, Alatar called out to Cala, “Earned your dirk? We doubt it,” and winked at Beshelar.

Beshelar did not acknowledge this until he had reached a distance that favoured an ordinary speaking volume. “Our colleague is Cala Athmaza,” he replied.

“His look is not that of a maza,” Alatar said ingenuously. Fool.

“Nevertheless,” Cala said lightly. His stride had lengthened as he approached the two guards; he did not pause, now, passing them. Alatar saluted him, sloppily, smirking; Cala’s return salute was far sharper, but he had allowed himself to be baited, and Alatar laughed.

“Need we send someone to relieve you, Alatar?” Beshelar snapped.

“No call for that, Beshelar,” Mirazh protested. “Tis well.”

Beshelar did not think so, but he did not command this pair. A word to their under-captain would be more effective than a confrontation now, when he had Cala in tow. “See that it is,” he said, and followed Cala.

“They will remember this,” he promised his partner.

“We had as rather they did not,” Cala replied, more soberly than was his wont. Beshelar attempted to smile at him. Cala attempted to smile back.

They walked three halls in silence before approaching another pair of guards. For a third time, Cala straightened his back and pushed out his chest, and, this time, tucked his elbows in. For his own part, Beshelar attempted to match Cala’s pace as unobtrusively as possible, despite Cala’s longer legs.

Ebredar and Uchihar were at this post. Beshelar hoped for a better reception here, or at least a neutral one, but did not find it. Ebredar was Hareva’s age, but inflexible. His greeting to Cala was dry, but not cruel; when Beshelar introduced Cala as a maza, Ebredar was embarrassed, and then offended that a man he had viewed as well below him in rank was in fact his equal. Unlike Alatar, he had the wit to respect an athmaza; like Alatar, he had more pride than grace. Beshelar and Cala left Ebredar and Uchihar bristling with suspicion.

The fourth pair of guards they passed were no less hostile to the figure Cala presented.

Cala was silent again until they left the halls and entered a quieter corridor. Then he turned to Beshelar. “We have not mocked you,” he said, cold and firm. “We would not be mocked.”

The rebuke was a fair one, and it stung.

It had been an ill-planned undertaking, and mockery had been its likeliest result. Perhaps a part of Beshelar had even wanted that. His comments on Cala’s robes and demeanor were always turned lightly aside. Now, he had driven his point home. He had hurt Cala. He was ashamed.

They crossed Usharsu’s Ladder, and entered the Mazan'theileian, and Beshelar noticed – as Cala did not seem to – the sidelong looks Cala received from the novices and mazei they passed. He winced at them. But Cala did not heed them. Within the tower of the mazei, Cala’s gait was again his ordinary gait, his shoulders rounded and sloped forward, his elbows bent at dangerous angles, and as he relaxed into himself, the clothes that Beshelar had dressed him in looked sillier and sillier. But Beshelar had stopped caring. He could see _Cala_ under the soldier’s uniform, and it was a relief – 

And that was a thought that brought with it a dangerous tenderness, and Beshelar fought with himself again.

At the door to Cala’s apartments, he offered, “We will take the uniform back.”

Cala said mildly, “Have you no time for further training?”

“As you wish,” Beshelar said. If Cala wished to put the incident aside, and take up his side of teaching, it might salvage the afternoon. He did have time. He always ensured there was time enough for his training sessions with Cala to run long.

Waiting alone in Cala’s bare practice-room, he attempted to compose his thoughts, but his mood was low.

Cala emerged in his ordinary robes. The trousers and tunic whose loan Beshelar had given him were bundled up messily; on another day, Beshelar might have been annoyed at the contrast with the tidy stack _he_ had given Cala, but he could scarce afford more pettiness today.

Cala’s previous lesson had concerned the pain-spells that a maza could cast, how to resist them, and how to tell the difference between magical and true pain. If Cala wished revenge, for having been trotted out for the palace guards to mock, here was an opportunity. Beshelar braced himself.

“Shall we continue from your last lesson?” he asked evenly.

Cala frowned. “No,” he said. “We think it is valuable that you know what a pain-spell is like, against the chance that another maza casts it upon you. But it is not a subtle tool.”

“Is there a tactic you prefer?” Beshelar asked, carefully. It felt insulting to ask Cala how he, himself, would use magic for harm. There was no bone of malice in Cala’s body. Today proved it.

“There are many,” Cala said. He hesitated before adding, “We could demonstrate. May we?”

“Yes,” Beshelar said recklessly, miserably.

Cala stroked his left hand with his right fingertips, then his right hand with his left fingertips, then reversed again. He murmured indistinguishably to himself. A paradox: his voice, trained for magic, was only ever harsh or abrupt when he was speaking a spell that required it. Otherwise, his words were always precise, his tone mild.

He stopped speaking, and looked directly at Beshelar.

Beshelar felt nothing: no change in the air, no effect on his body.

Cala waited, staring at him. Beshelar raised his chin and held his gaze.

 _Subtle_ , Cala had said. Was this a spell that muddled thoughts? If so, Beshelar was not sure how to begin to defend against it. Was he under some such influence now?

He felt no unexpected emotion, or sudden impulse. 

His left calf itched. He shut out the distraction, concentrating on his breathing.

Inconveniently, he became aware of the need to relieve himself. It was an irony: he was trying so hard to determine what Cala’s spell had done that he was intensely aware of his body’s signals.

Cala sighed. He retrieved his stool from behind his writing desk, stood it by the wall, and positioned it to allow him to lean back, watching Beshelar.

Beshelar shifted his weight slightly. The discomfort in his abdomen only increased. 

The distraction was making it impossible to determine what change was working in the room. Even after months of practice, even when Cala cast his spells to be felt and seen, Beshelar had limited success in sensing the externalities of magic. He felt nothing now.

He was going to have to excuse himself, and try again. 

He cleared his throat.

“It is more subtle than pain, you see,” Cala said, before he could speak. “But are you not yet in difficulty?”

He was confused for a moment longer, and then it dawned on him. Cala’s spell had hold of his body, not his mind, after all.

“Not yet,” he said, distracted further. Surely if he allowed himself to focus on his discomfort, he would be able to feel how it was different to the ordinary needs of his body. “Continue.” He planted his feet, breathed carefully, pushing back against what he needed.

Cala said, “Pain, whether slow or sharp, incapacitates. But the subject of a pain-spell is alerted to the evil. If we wished to harm or distract a… a person,” he said, “it might be preferable that they did not know.”

Long training had taught Beshelar how mistakes could be made because of hunger or lack of sleep – or this. Cruel, to believe one had been betrayed by one’s own body.

“We cannot feel it yet,” he said. Cala frowned. “The difference, we mean.” He could certainly feel the pressure. There were spasms, now, pain radiating from his groin. He pressed a hand to his belly; it felt tight. His body was entirely deceived. 

He tried to breathe inside the pain. He was desperate, but it was exactly as if he had drunk too deeply and ignored the need too long. He could not sense strangeness.

He abandoned dignity, lowering himself to an awkward crouch on the flagstones. Holding himself up with one hand, he pressed ruthlessly on his own abdomen with the other, measuring the spike of pain that resulted as a man might shout to hear the echoes.

“Beshelar.”

He so badly needed to piss, but he did not want to start from the beginning again. The sensation was so strong – surely he should be able to discern what share of these feelings was not his own.

“Beshelar.”

Cala’s arm came around his torso, pulling him up. Beshelar gasped with pain, and with the nearness of an even greater indignity. He did not want to wet himself on Cala’s floor. He half-staggered, half-allowed himself to be dragged, to Cala’s tiny lavatory.

Cala arranged him in front of the necessary. He bent, hands braced on the seat, unable to do more. It was Cala who undid his trousers, and folded his tunic out of the way. Careful as Cala was, the movement of cloth and fingers over his groin, thighs, and stomach was excruciating. He breathed entirely in gasps now.

“Beshelar. Deret. We beg you. Relax,” Cala said.

“Can you not take the spell off us?” Beshelar countered, resisting.

“We cannot take back the ripples a stone casts into a pond,” Cala replied, with wryness to match Beshelar’s bitterness. That was too much. The image of water was too much. Without conscious permission, his bladder released its contents. Cala held him upright; it was all he could do to direct his stream, panting almost louder than the splash of liquid. He did not like that he had been pushed over the edge by Cala’s words – one further bodily betrayal – but the irritation he felt was nothing when measured against his relief. The pain lifted from him slowly, like a cloud drawing off, and he was dizzy with it, gasping still, but this time from ecstasy.

It did not take very long for him to be done.

He closed his eyes, exhausted, still breathing in harsh, ugly pants. Subtle, indeed. He was wrung out; in some strange place beyond shame. Cala had worked a spell on him, and he had encouraged him in casting it; he had fought the spell, and succumbed.

He almost would rather believe that this spell had been Cala’s revenge on him. But he did not believe that. If there were humiliation here, he had brought it on himself. He was leaning against Cala, his buttocks pressed into Cala’s robe and thighs, his cock out, still dripping, shaking with the effort of staying upright – a ludicrous picture in every way – and he still _owed_ Cala something.

Cala’s grip on him shifted. He must be uncomfortable too – demonstrably, there was room in Cala’s tiny lavatory for two people, wedged between the tub and the necessary, but only barely. One of Cala’s arms released him, and a moment later, the lip of a vessel was pressed to his lips.

Beshelar made some kind of sound. He could not hope that it conveyed the depths of his distaste. 

“We would not make you ill with lack of water,” Cala said, sounding disapproving. Guiltily, Beshelar drank.

The cup was taken away.

He did not want to open his eyes and begin to put himself back together. 

He would, in a moment.

If they stayed like this for much longer, his cock would make a fool of him twice over.

Cala’s grip shifted again – he was moving around him. Beshelar felt a hand at the side of his face. Then the brief, gentle press of lips on his forehead.

Beshelar made another sound, its meaning opaque even to him. It was not a protest, though Cala withdrew.

“We only meant,” Cala began, sounding concerned.

“Mean what you want,” Beshelar said, one surrender coming fast behind another.

With a great effort, he opened his eyes. Cala was wedged against the edge of the open doorway, looking startled. Beshelar cursed himself. He had spoken rashly. Cala had had no idea. The kiss had been kindness. And now he must speak fully, and hope that Cala’s kindness was sufficient to bear this last indignity.

“We have asked much of you,” he said. Perhaps this situation called for the use of the informal, but he could not make himself do it. “We know what is – not correct to ask. Not acceptable. But, please, your discretion –”

From Cala’s expression, he knew Beshelar was not referring to having been made to empty his bladder by Cala’s spell. Beshelar was not sure what guess replaced this. Crudely, he gestured at his own groin. Crudely, his nascent arousal spoke for him.

Cala swallowed, and Beshelar watched his throat as he swallowed so that he did not have to watch Cala’s face.

Cala reached out to Beshelar again. Beshelar very deliberately did not flinch.

“Beshelar,” Cala said, “I would wish… I would wish that there was much more between us, to be discreet about.”

He took in Cala’s meaning, and it stunned him. He breathed in once, and out, and took breath again, but did not speak, yet. So.

And yet: this was what he had guessed Cala might offer him, from their first meeting and Cala’s warm smile then, and he had hesitated to take it. He had doubted the wisdom of doing so. He had doubted that _he_ possessed the wisdom not to wreck the two of them, in both friendship and in reputation.

He was not sure he had grown in wisdom since.

Despite Beshelar’s silence, Cala’s expression did not flicker, nor did his ears. Beshelar’s hesitation did not seem to dismay him.

If Beshelar refused him, would Cala understand? Yes, Beshelar thought. He would.

And surely, if Beshelar could trust Cala now to accept a refusal, he might trust him in the future to break off a liaison that had become impossible. More than he trusted himself to work alongside Cala, _knowing_ that he could have more if he only spoke. Now the convenient fiction of uncertainty was gone, and Beshelar did not want to endure the tension it would leave behind.

He _wanted_ to pull himself up, and then pull Cala to him. He wanted to, and if he let himself think this through too much he might choose not to want to, as he had chosen not to say or do any improper thing in Cala's company before. But for once, that possibility did not seem like the victory of wisdom, but cowardice.

“As you wish,” Beshelar said, not as smoothly as he would like, and at the close of _wish_ Cala was kissing him. 

Exhaustion made them both ungainly, but Cala’s kisses were firm and thorough and satisfying. Later, Beshelar thought he might tease Cala about the difference between his clever tongue when he spoke, and his somewhat less clever tongue between Beshelar’s teeth, but not now. Kissing was an entirely different spell and did not require precision.

He pressed forward against Cala, taking advantage of his own state of undress to enjoy the friction between his body and Cala’s robe. Cala pressed him backwards. “We have waited long enough.” Cala said – formal, not plural, and Beshelar enjoyed the implications very much. “We shall do things… _correctly_ … now.”

He helped Beshelar into the tub, where there was room for one person only to stand. Beshelar assumed that this was to give Cala room to strip, as this was what he immediately proceeded to do, but he was mistaken. Though Cala helped Beshelar rid himself of tunic, trousers, and shoes completely, he then ordered Beshelar to stay where he was, and fetched a cloth, and a bucket full of water, whose contents he heated with a mutter and a wave. “You are a fastidious lover,” Beshelar said, surprised and ineffectually passing it off as amusement.

“You were grey and sweating a moment ago,” Cala retorted, “and we were not much better.”

The point was well made. He would prefer to fall upon Cala out of eagerness than out of exhaustion. 

The cramped space necessitated close contact even beyond that required to sponge each other off. Beshelar gave in to every opportunity afforded to him, impatient to touch Cala everywhere, and the more so the more unhurried Cala seemed.

“Enough,” Cala pronounced at last, and with another spell, dried them. “We are showing off,” he admitted ruefully. 

They padded across the chamber together. Beshelar had not previously entered the alcove where Cala slept; he saw from the doorway that it was dark. He paused to look Cala over once, greedily: his long back and thighs, his pale arms, his cock jutting from pale hair. He noted bruises and scratches already known to him, placing them according to when he knew Cala had acquired them – all in his company. He had marked him already.

“Come here,” Cala said, stepping through the doorway. Beshelar came.

It was a paltry space, just wide enough for the pallet and barely deeper than it. Cala lay down immediately and slid over against the wall. Beshelar gingerly lowered himself beside him; brief writhings and negotiations followed, and ended with Cala part-sprawled across Beshelar, Beshelar’s cock pressing into his stomach, Cala’s cock pressing into Beshelar’s thigh. That was good, almost perfect, and at the same time worlds away from what Beshelar needed.

It was a challenge to move under Cala, thrusting skin against skin; he managed it, and the noises Cala made suggested he had better continue to manage it. “Deret,” Cala said, “ _Deret_.” If he had been unhurried before, he was desperate now. 

Beshelar squinted up at him, not entirely certain. “Less?”

“ _No_ ,” Cala said.

Cala came all over Beshelar’s thighs, his hand pressed surprisingly lightly to Beshelar’s jaw. He reached down eagerly to Beshelar’s cock, trapped beneath him, then hesitated, and pulled Beshelar over on top of him instead. “Please,” he said, pulling Beshelar up toward his mouth. He licked Beshelar’s thighs clean before turning his attention to Beshelar’s balls.

It was not a politic time to remark _You have done this before_ ; in any case, it was only a passing thought, because Cala drove it from his mind, both hands and mouth bent ardently to his task.

Later, he would ask. Later, he would tell Cala how he wanted Cala to grip him and what he liked best; for now he let Cala do what he wanted, and show him what he already knew. And it was _Cala_ below him in the dark, and if he had not let himself dwell on that idea while waking, sometimes he had dreamed it, and woken spent. This redeemed each confused dream and its incomplete satisfaction.

Cala was stroking him towards completion, faster to match Beshelar’s urgent breathing. Beshelar wanted to flood Cala’s avid mouth, and he wanted to draw out to an infinite length the moment before that – 

The world burst around him. He came in thick spurts down Cala’s throat. Cala held him in his mouth until long after Beshelar thought he was done, and then let his head drop back. 

They rearranged themselves, at Cala’s insistence. Despite his optimism it was not possible for two to lie in that space entirely comfortably. Beshelar thought that, the next time, he would persuade Cala to drag the pallet out to the practice room floor. _Next time_. It was not greed, he told himself, but trust.

“We will master that _subtle_ spell of yours,” he told Cala, “an you try it again.”

Cala laughed. “You are fond of punishment,” he said. “And yet – perhaps we may now cast it in another way. If the spell is diluted, if it is cast awry, it is not merely your bladder it affects; its results are mixed.” His caress of Beshelar’s cock implied another meaning.

“In doing that, you invoke desire?” Beshelar asked.

“We did not wish to visit that upon you unwarned.”

Beshelar considered it. “But perhaps with warning,” he agreed. The appeal of the idea went well beyond the benefit of mastering Cala’s spell, and protecting himself against it.

But that idea could be more fully explored the next time he and Cala met.

Or a time after that…

Thou'rt fond, Beshelar told himself. Thou knowest not what thou dost. 

He was still wary. They had begun this thing, but trust now was no surety against all the ways that it might hurt them both, or deceive them both; trust was no guardian, and discretion and caution imperfect safeguards. Yet he relied on them in all other things, and would put his hope in them now. And in Cala.


End file.
